


A Castle of Ice

by Dreamsoda



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Princesses, Frozen (2013)
Genre: "songfic", Canon Compliant, but it does include a song but not in the way you're thinking, idk what do you call it when something is like in a scene but told from a different perspective?, it's that, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamsoda/pseuds/Dreamsoda
Summary: A close analytical reading of the ice castle scene and For the First Time in Forever--Reprise song that the sisters sing to each other.





	A Castle of Ice

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a creative writing class and decided to post it because it's not half bad I guess? The dialogue is word for word from the scene. Also if you LOVE frozen and can't read criticism of it or sarcasm on the film, maybe don't read this? I'm pretty brutal. Love what you love man, but I don't love it so I wrote this. Seriously, these are just my opinions and my take on that scene, DON'T read this if you don't want to read Frozen criticism I cannot stress this enough.
> 
> P.S. ALL of this criticism is aimed at the writers, NOT the characters. I am criticizing the writers of the screenplay and the creators of the movie NOT Ana, or Elsa, or whatever. 
> 
> Most of your questions I will answer in the end :O!! If you're confused about anything and my end notes don't answer it feel free to comment or whatever.

Anna stands at a door, her gloved hand spread on the icy coldness which had always permeated between her and Elsa.

There's no explanation why she's standing like this, but let’s say she's realizing how it all made a lot of sense now. Maybe she had always wondered about the coldness from the door, maybe she'd thought it was just in her head. Just a cold shoulder and a wild imagination.

But it wasn’t. It was this. Permafrost and ice.

Anna came to talk to her sister.

This is their moment.

Except, there's no focus on her. The only moment asked to focus on her is shifted to the annoying metaphor.

"Knock."

She doesn’t.

"Just knock."

She doesn’t.

"Why isn't she knocking?"

Reasons.

"Do you think she knows how to knock?"

She was in her own moment, but we aren’t allowed to be there, too.

When she finally hits the door, “Oh! Oh, it opened," she says to herself, the narrative allows her this moment, "That's a first..."

Taking advantage of the door slowly opening on its own, she begins to enter. The metaphor and her blonde antithesis assume, because the story focuses on them, that this important moment should also center on them. Not this time boys! She bars them from entering, the exposition of her life has built up for this moment and for one minute this was going to be about her.

Her antithesis is annoyed, "Oh come on!", since she's having a moment of narrative relevance, he continues his job as an antithesis and assumes the role of having no depth, "It's a palace made of _ice_! Ice is my life!!"

The metaphor laughs, pleased that the antithesis is being forced to step aside to let Anna take charge, provided the narrative continues to be all about him. But Anna has the gall to stop the metaphor next. Give her a minute? One minute, sixty-seconds for her own story? Let her have the narrative just for a New York minute, please?

He's stunned, "Okay..." He turns to sit next to the slumped antithesis on the stairs, vowing to snatch-back the narrative in exactly one minute, "One...two...three...four..."

Anna leaves them on the steps and enters the door that finally opened. Perma-cold envelopes her and the door falls shut quietly behind her. This is the castle's way of showing their guest the best, you get to be the center of attention for one minute, Anna. Aren’t you spoiled?

She doesn’t notice. Wonderment steals her away.

Walls, floors, stairs, everything was made completely of crystal sheet-ice, reflecting sky, snow, and mountain, making everything appear a lonely, vacant blue. The blank, vaguely shiny walls really display the 150 million dollar budget this narrative had to work with.

Because this story is about Anna, naturally, we have no idea what she's feeling. We can speculate the hollow drafts carried a faint memory to Anna. Maybe she could recall a plastic dream of being surrounded by not a shred of life, no earthy smell, just cold water. Maybe she held the memory in her heart as she walked about the sterile, lifeless walls. Maybe she felt abandoned, maybe she could feel something from Elsa, maybe fear. Perhaps she recalled, from her own memory, mixed with current feelings, a sense of childish wonder. Perhaps the deep pleasure of building a home with her sister was now tainted by the emptiness of the castle, the walls, the color.

In all her memories Elsa was always…

"Anna..?"

The soft, lilted voice echoed, but it was unmistakably Elsa's. The sisters caught eyes, both standing at either end of a crystalline stairwell.

Anna couldn't believe it, nothing about Elsa had ever been familiar, save for that voice always telling her to go away, go away, _go away_...but the Elsa standing atop the stairwell, hair down, big smile, bright eyes. She looked different, Anna gushed, a good different!

This Elsa was open. It was impossible to compare the two, the only two Elsas Anna had ever seen. One had stood with her hands folded and passive, waiting for time to pass, waiting for her lot, but this wasn’t that Elsa! She’s different.

And the castle, Anna can't help but continue, it's amazing. She can't begin to describe her wonderment, how had Elsa done it?

"Thank you," Elsa says so genuinely, "I never knew what I was capable of..." she looks around at what's she made, pleased. Looking at her hands.

The pleasure is quickly stolen as Anna tries to ascend the stairs, honestly apologizing about what happened, yet neglecting to mention that it had been a misunderstanding due to Anna's own brashness.

The apology, which wasn't going to turn in the correct direction anyway, was cut short by Elsa, "No-no-no—it's okay," she says, backing away, afraid. She looks away, accepting the blame that Anna had gift-wrapped for her, "You don't have to apologize...but…you should probably go," her body turns now, shame overwhelming her, "Please."

Anna doesn't want to go, she just got here. She doesn't want another shut door, another Elsa to maybe see one day or maybe one day not. She wants this Elsa, the open and happy one. Anna protests.  
"You belong down in Arendelle," Elsa begs earnestly, backing away into the confines of the castle.

So do _you_.

"No, Anna, I belong here," Elsa rationalizes, more for herself than for Anna. She takes an expressive glide over the glass landing, spreading out her hands, indicating the lonely, blue castle, “Alone," Elsa can't hide the laugh, the amusement at the realization she's moved from prison to hand crafted prison. Nothing had changed, "Where I can be who I am without hurting anybody." But here she could be whatever she wanted, _feel_ as much as she needed without...

Anna. She didn't seem to be listening, but it's still kind of her story to tell. There was no sign of a an eye opened understanding, so, instead of trying to understand what Elsa meant, she takes it....actually...about that...

"SIXTY!"

"Wait—" Elsa says, looking up confused, believing that they had been alone, "What is that?"

The metaphor, holding true to his threat, barrels in after Anna— _exactly_ a minute later. Bound and determined to fix the focus from the _protagonists_ back onto him, "HEY! I'm a metaphor for the childhood love you shared, I could have been portrayed through interactions between you, but instead I'm a separate character who diverts attention away from your own characterization in order to showcase my own and I like warm hugs!!"

"Our childhood metaphor?" Elsa says in confused elation.

The metaphor stops on the stairs next to Anna, hitting the audience in the face with a symbolic baseball bat that childhood happiness is with _Anna_. Anna, who is _here_ , who wants to _forgive_ , _forget_ , and _never think about this again_ so long as Elsa stops being weird, "You built me," he says, referring to a childhood memory where the sisters had made him together, yet also drawing back on the awkward, out-of-place moment when Elsa had stopped, scene cut, to make him while she let her powers loose. It was immemorable and awkwardly shoved in like every other plot point, "Remember that?"  
"And you're alive?" She's astonished, confused at her powers. Her shoehorn murder in the snow of subtlety...and he had turned out to be important. She couldn't believe it. No one could believe it. A 100% stop in action to swivel up this metaphor before picking up right where the his scene had stabbed itself in and _HE_ was important...who could have _possibly known_.

"Ye-Uh-Uhm..." he flexes his branches, looking at himself, "I think so?"

While Elsa ponders the complexity of her powers which will never be discussed or explained, let alone attempted, Anna kneels next to the metaphor, pouring more bright red paint all over the white snow of subtle symbolism. She makes sure to firmly establish that he is The metaphor for their childhood.

"Yeah..." Elsa says softly to herself, to Anna, to no one. She is suddenly feeling the same feeling Anna had felt upon entering the castle: soft nostalgia for something that had been stolen.  
Anna mentions it as again, we can be what we once were, we can do it.

Elsa's smile fades, while childhood had been idyllic to Anna, it had been the beginning of her origin story, her nightmare, her fall. She relives the pain and then she snaps back to the present, her gaze refocusing to Anna, reluctantly, "No, we can't," her voice wobbles and she turns her back on her sister, on the promise of redemption from her fear and mistakes, "Goodbye, Anna."

This isn't want Anna wants! She knows it's not what Elsa wants, either. She protests to wait. The metaphor is still next to her.

"No! I'm just trying to protect you," Elsa lets the castle envelope her as she begins to retreat up the stairs, hurrying further into herself, into the only safe thing she's ever known: imprisonment.

Anna doesn't understand! _Please don't shut me out again! Please don't slam the door_. The metaphor is mysteriously gone, although he had been intent to the point of counting until he could interject himself, he decides to suddenly disappear. Anna hurriedly chases her sister up the stairwell, determinedly ignoring the wishes of Elsa and blatantly misunderstanding what she needs. _You don't have to keep your distance anym_ ore.

_Cause for the first time in forever I finally understand._

Elsa is running away from Anna.

_For the first time in forever we can fix this hand in hand._

Elsa, off-screen. Anna, offering a hand to her retreating back.

_We can head down this mountain together._

Anna's blind, reckless determination should be endearing—

_You don't have to live in fear!_

—had she ever realized the damage she was doing and stepped back.

_Cause for the first time in forever...I will be right here!_

They stop in a room atop the stairs, all the things Anna has blindly thrown at Elsa didn’t work. Elsa turns to face, "Anna," ready to throw her hopes and dreams at her, give up everything for her like always, "Please go back home," it was funny that Elsa referred her prison as their home, "Your life awaits!" Elsa had no life and she never expected to have one, "Go enjoy the sun and open up the gates!"

Anna tries to get a word in.

"I know! You mean well, but leave me be," she turns and paces across the room for a momentary taste in freedom, "Yes I'm alone! But I'm alone and _free_!"

Anna follows her, watching this take place, listening to Elsa admit the irony of her life. Anna's face looks horrified, as though this was the moment her sister's struggles were defuddling inside her. As if she was actually listening. She wasn't, not to spoil for the audience, but Anna wasn't listening at all.

"Just...stay away," Elsa begs, backing away from Anna, retreating back into the castle, "And you'll be safe from me..."

This is where that struggle to understand, the realization filling and overflowing inside of Anna boiled completely dry, turning into nothing: _actually we're not..._

This jars Elsa, her body curves inward, uncomfortable, unsettled, "What do you mean you're not?"

_I get the feeling you don't know!_

"What do I not know?!"

_Arendelle’s in deep deep deep deep snow..?_

"What..??"

It's snowing everywhere, it's a day long eternity. Everywhere.

"Everywhere?"

Anna's character inverts, even without her antithesis to highlight her naivety, she finds she can display it just fine all on her own. Despite watching a small snowstorm begin around them and every sign around Anna screaming Something! Is! _Wrong_! Anna doesn't seem perturbed by the obvious distress swirling, not only in Elsa, but throughout the entire room, emoting a dangerous disturbance. Anna just puts on a big grin, declares that she knows she could just unfreeze it! Why would any of this ever have been a problem? Just unfreeze it!!

"No I can't!" Elsa protests, confused, afraid, contrasting Anna's bright, blind optimism, "I-I don't know how!"

Anna disagrees! Anna has all the answers! After all this time, seeing all this fear, regression, hearing Elsa’s talk of forcefully sealing herself away, and all those happy, normal things, Anna disagrees. Sure you can! Just do it!! What's the problem? Anna _knows_ she can. She blunders forward, pushing into the snowstorm, carelessly. It would have been endearing, singing enthusiastically about first times and forevers, had her character ever gone anywhere. Had she ever changed. Or been shown to change. But she didn't. This Anna crossing lines is the same Anna now and forever.

Meanwhile.

"Oh...I'm such a fool..." Elsa reverts inward, struggling with who she is, forced to listen to Anna uselessly badger her from behind, "I can't be _free_."

You don't have to be afraid! Anna insists, offering no reason that would alleviate the fear Anna has to physically fight through in her attack.

"There's no escape from the storm inside of me..." Elas admits, defeated. The storm Anna intrudes through is swarming and Elsa is becoming more frantic. The entire arc of her story about letting herself be free, even in her own new castle, her own new box, it's all just dust. "I can't control the curse!" She had only  _just_ let go, _just_ allowed herself to love this thing she'd been taught to hate and Anna had come to snap it to pieces.

This problem that you made, Anna says, visibly getting perturbed, annoyed even, that her insistence to solve Elsa's problem isn't appreciated during her magical panic attack.

"Oh, Anna, Please! You'll only make it worse!"

Don't panic!! The most helpful advice to someone having a _panic attack_! Anna to the rescue!

"There's so much fear--!"

Elsa turns to face Anna, her body tense and face twisted in fear as Anna insists that things get better!

"You're not _safe_ here!"

Anna keeps insisting, naively. Nothing comes of this insisting _or_ her character, but it certainly keeps happening.

Elsa caves in on herself. Her wails drown out Anna's continued Op-To-Mis-Tic!! chanting. Together we can fix _your_ mess! Together _you_ can stop being such a failure! We can fix _your_ mistakes! This can hardly be heard over Elsa, similar to how Anna as a character can hardly be heard over literally any other character in the movie.

With each frantic passing second and each useless insistence, Elsa turns more into herself, the storm becoming wilder, more turbulent—Anna is drowning in her blizzard of fear and anger and anxiety—  
Elsa snaps, answering Anna's Yes! You! Cans!, "I CAN'T—!!!!"

The storm swells into Elsa, disappearing only to explode outward, directly at heart level.

Anna is hit in the heart.

Elsa uncurls from herself, exhausted from the mental marathon, but suddenly feels calmer, more relaxed, in an anxious I-was-dying-two-seconds-ago-but-now-I'm-only-sort-of-dying kind of way. Everything is suddenly...better...ish. Albeit a painful, exhausting mode of letting everything go, she can think clearer having letting it. After this she would have been able to talk about it like a normal person. Astounding to think that letting someone panic and worry only to subsequently let it go could have a calming effect on a person.

Had this line of understanding been displayed in the narrative at all, other than Elsa's sudden ability to talk rationally, it would have been fascinating. But! Like everything else this story had to offer, all of it was non sequitur, never be mentioned or explained, not even in passing, ever. Anna never learns not to be brash, Elsa never learns she's allowed to let her emotions go, and the audience never learns the point.

This moment teaches Anna nothing. She's kneeling on the floor, groaning softly in pain from her own intrusion, and this teaches her _nothing_ about not sticking your finger in pies that don't belong to you. And, from a rhetorical standard, the frozen heart would have been a phenomenal allegory for distancing yourself from someone who had hurt you in anger or even on accident. Eventually Elsa would have come and saved Anna, unfreezing the damage she had done by realizing that letting go of resentment would undo damage that had been done. Elsa would have worked to undo the accidental damage and in turn Anna would have let go of past anguish.

But! Instead.

Elsa, still reeling from herself, hears Anna's soft groan, only to turn—she had been _hurt_...just like Elsa had always feared, just like she knew she'd do one day. Anna hadn't been safe here. If Anna hadn't come at all then Anna would have been safe! Anna—Anna had to go…

For unexplained reasons, just as Elsa spots Anna, the antithesis and metaphor enter the scene, panicked. Although before it took only a minute for the clingy show stealer to come do his job, for unexplained reasons, this time he had taken nearly three minutes.

The antithesis, running up the stairs, spots Anna and slides to her rescue, "Anna—!" He helps her to her feet.

Yes, it was that awkward in-scene.

"Wh-who's this?" Elsa is exhausted, afraid, still, and stunned at the man who'd come to Anna's aid unexplained, "Wait, i-it doesn't matter," she decides, conveniently explaining the plothole away, "Just...you have to go."

Anna doesn't want to go. She hasn't learned anything. Together!!! She says again. Together! Which was the answer the movie wanted to pound into our heads, but Elsa wasn't ready to hear it! Elsa needed something else to save her, an assurance that she was loved, not _another_ person telling her that she had to keep hiding who she was. Or something. None of this would ever be relevant or related, but it was interesting to think on how all of the characterization, all the full circles that could have been.

"How!?" Elsa demands, a tone of desperation filling her voice and her body, "What power do you have to stop this winter?? To stop me??"

Anna still doesn't hear it. She isn't leaving.

"Yes...you are!"

**Author's Note:**

> The Metaphor - Olaf. I decided to make him a metaphor because that's literally what he is. That's all he is. He functions as a metaphor and his inclusion takes away from what could have been, you know, actual characterization. That being said he's a cute character and I like his songs.
> 
> The Antithesis - Kristof. I decided to put him as an antithesis because whatever Ana's doing, he's doing the opposite. It gets pretty frustrating watching his character spoof back and forth fro meaningful to "I am the Ice Man" idk. I originally wrote this scene with more of the cliff climbing scene etc, but, like, it was too long etc. So it's kind of a thing I did but decided not to mess with too much? Yeah I get the irony lol.
> 
> Why I chose to silence Anna - I felt like in the narrative Anna as a character was silenced. I just certain lines of the song and that one line of dialogue to let her speak directly because a) the song just would NOT work without the direct quotes and b) I explained that one tag at the beginning, but it has to do with when she's allowed character depth and when the narrative isn't so oppressively hateful of her. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :O!


End file.
